“Animation is about silhouettes,” he says, “and striking poses is the essence of animation. According to Patterson, Chambers had an intrinsic understanding of what he needed to do to make for a stellar animated final product. Boogaloo Shrimp, legendary ’80s break-dancer and a star of Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Fortunately, Patterson and Reckinger made it a lot easier by hiring a remarkable dancer to model for MC Skat Kat: Michael Chambers, a.k.a. And thus, MC Skat Kat’s outfit was born.Īdding animation to footage of a person dancing would be a daunting task for an animation team no matter what - they’d have to replicate, in cartoon cat form, the exact motions of Abdul’s human stand-in dance partner and composite them with footage of Abdul. Reckinger remembers in a meeting with Ayeroff that he looked at Patterson and said, “Hey, why can’t he dress more like you?” At that moment, Patterson was rocking some baggy pants held up with suspenders, worn over a tank top. He signed off on Skat Kat, but he didn’t like the retro elements that remained, preferring a more modern look. Eventually, they came up with an agreeable design and presented it to Ayeroff. They asked Bailey to add in more and more hip-hop elements, which was a bit tricky since the look and tropes of that culture weren’t altogether familiar to the mainstream yet. “It was too retro at first, and we wanted contemporary,” Reckinger says. Patterson and Reckinger worked closely with animator Chris Bailey and went back and forth for a bit to get the character design they envisioned. “And they don’t do what you want.” That natural aloofness of a cat (or Kat) would juxtapose nicely with the poised Abdul. Patterson took a cue from the cool, shifty felines of Hanna-Barbera’s Top Cat cartoons from the ’60s to create Abdul’s animated partner, but why, specifically, did the character have to be a cat? “Cats are cool,” Reckinger explains.
To emphasize emerging hip-hop culture, Virgin remixed the song, adding in a rapped intro provided by Derrick “Delite” Stevens and written by Romany Malco, who’d later co-star in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. “MC Hammer had just come out,” Reckinger tells Vulture, naming the bridge between what still remained “a huge gulf between black music and white music.” The directors decided to combine Abdul’s proficiency with movie-musical style and tap dancing with her modern-day dancing abilities. While those movies are classics, they were a bit old-fashioned, and Patterson and Reckinger wanted to inject some hip-hop culture into the mix. Kelly was also responsible for the most famous predecessor of the “Opposites Attract” concept (and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) of a live human dancing with an animated creation - this sequence in Anchors Aweigh (1945) where he grooved with Jerry from Tom and Jerry in adorable matching sailor suits.
Paula abdul straight up gif movie#
Patterson and Reckinger are also big fans of Kelly, as well as the American movie musical in general, particularly Kelly’s Oscar-winning opus An American in Paris. They headed up the creation of MC Skat Kat, a brief cultural sensation in the form of an old-school Disney-type animated cat whose vibe was equal parts musical theater and then-burgeoning hip-hop culture.īefore she became a pop sensation, Abdul had famously worked as a choreographer and dancer (including a stint as a “Laker Girl”), and, like most American dancers of the late 20th century, was heavily inspired by Gene Kelly and wanted to demonstrate that in a video. To bring him into the visual realm, Virgin Records’ Jeff Ayeroff sought out video directing team and animation experts Michael Patterson (A-ha’s “Take on Me”) and Candace Reckinger (Suzanne Vega’s “Luka”). On the record, musical duo the Wild Pair provided the singing voice for the then-unnamed character, a lover of Abdul’s who is her complete opposite in every way. It featured the singer dancing with a cool, street-smart, rapping, dancing cartoon cat. These phenomena collided in one of the era’s best music videos: Paula Abdul’s “Opposites Attract,” featuring MC Skat Kat. It was also a golden age of cartoon cats, what with Oliver & Company and Garfield & Friends. The late 1980s brought with it new advances in the seamless combination of live-action with animation, exemplified by Who Framed Roger Rabbit. An animation cel with MC Skat Kat and Paula Abdul for “Opposites Attract.”
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